Web standards

Web standards are technical specifications and guidelines that define how web technologies behave and communicate, enabling consistent implementation across browsers, devices, and services.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol: The application-layer protocol used to request and transfer resources on the web. It standardizes how browsers and servers exchange web resources.
World Wide Web Consortium: An international organization that develops standards and guidelines for the World Wide Web. It publishes many specifications that shape browser and web-platform behavior.
Tim Berners-Lee: The computer scientist who invented the World Wide Web while working at CERN. His early web proposal introduced the technologies that standards later formalized.
Web interoperability: The ability of different web systems and implementations to exchange information and operate together. Consistent standards make sites work across browsers, devices, and services.
Web browser: Software that retrieves and presents web resources and enables interaction with web content. Browsers implement standards; they are not the specifications themselves.
HTML: The markup language used to structure content on web pages. Its specifications define the elements and semantics browsers interpret as page structure.
WHATWG: A standards organization focused on evolving core technologies of the web platform. Its living standards maintain specifications such as HTML and the DOM.
CERN: The European particle-physics laboratory where the World Wide Web was developed. The web’s first implementation and proposal arose from CERN’s need to share information.
Browser compatibility: The degree to which a website behaves consistently across different web browsers. Standards provide common behavior, though implementation differences can still cause incompatibilities.
Proprietary software: Software controlled by its owner, whose use, modification, or distribution is restricted by license. Open web standards can be implemented by competing products rather than controlled by one vendor.

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